


The Masks We Wear

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, Declarations Of Love, Depression, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One Night Stands, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Sixty-nine, Slow Burn, Smut, Thoughts of Suicide, bisexual Kakashi, gay tenzo, lost virginity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 05:08:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10937646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: For as long as Kakashi can remember, he's worn the mask. The few lovers he had through his life were the only people that truly knew what his face looked like. Every one of them wanted to know why he wore the mask, but he couldn't give them an answer. Until a comrade from his ANBU years, a life-long friend, Tenzo, reminds him. And all Kakashi can do is confess how much this means to him.





	The Masks We Wear

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys don't mind if I join the Naruto fandom too? 
> 
> (P.S I stole the headcanon that Kakashi can smell when a woman is ovulating from tumblr somewhere. Don't know who came up with it but it wasn't me.)

_Years before…_

The woman sat up in my bed at the first sign of daylight outside of my window. The light illuminated her creamy back, and I felt tempted to trail my fingertips down her spine one last time before she left. But she slid her kimono back on over her shoulders. Then she glanced at me, laying on my back, arms crossed behind my head. I’d pulled my mask on without her seeing. 

She smiled, but not like she was happy. Like she was disappointed. “I’m not special enough to tell why you where the mask, am I? Have you ever told anyone?”

“Hmmm?” I said, pretending like I didn’t quite hear her, so I could buy myself a second or two. Then I answered, “Never thought about it.”

She looked skeptical, as if someone who had worn a mask all his life couldn’t possibly have never thought about it. And she was right. But unlike what she assumed, I really wasn’t sure. 

It could be because the less a ninja revealed his emotions to his enemy the better chance he had at defeating or deceiving them, and I never knew when I’d come across an enemy. I slept with my mask on, because I’d woken up to a kunai pressed against my throat before. It could also be because if an enemy never saw my face, they couldn’t remember what I looked like, and they couldn’t tell others what I looked like. Or maybe it was because wearing a mask could mean one or both of two things about a person’s character: that they were paranoid, or overly cautious, of which I was both. 

Most likely, it was because my father had asked me to when I was just a boy. He’d explained that I looked too much like him, and he didn’t want his enemies to recognize me as his son. And when I was old enough, he didn’t want my enemies to recognize him as my father. 

But whenever I came to this conclusion, I reminded myself that it had never worked. Those who knew of The White Fang of the Leaf, knew he had silver hair. My mask didn’t cover my hair. It was almost like a kekkei-genkai in that way. The Haruno clan had pink hair in their genes. The Hatake clan, what was left of it: me, had silver hair. Half the time, enemies thought I was my father, despite the obvious age difference and the fact that he’d died over a decade ago, now. 

“It’s just a habit,” I said, hoping she’d take that as my answer and not just a way to get her off my back. It was a way to get her off my back. But it was also my answer.

She wore the same disappointed smile as she slid her sandals back on. “I suppose I should consider myself lucky: I’m one of so few who’ve seen your face…” She lifted her head. “Or am I? How many lovers has Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan had?” She laughed. 

I wanted to say, “Not enough,” but bit my tongue, even though it was true. Definitely not as many as she was thinking. Not as many as most people thought, I figured. Nowhere near as many. 

She stood to leave, and there I was at the door, about to open it for her. She didn’t look surprised. Maybe she’d had many lovers of her own, many other ninjas who’d needed her noncommittal presence for one night. I blushed from shame.

Another reason I wore the mask?

“Thank you,” I said under my breath, “Tonight was –”

“Let’s not ruin this with formalities or pretenses,” she responded, and she rested her hand against my chest. She forced another smile. “I hope you find someone who’s special enough to keep your confessions, Kakashi.”

Then she left as swiftly and silently as any kunoichi I’d ever known.

I stared out my door, then pressed it shut. “It wasn’t a pretense,” I said to myself. 

Then I went to bed, hoping to wake up a few hours from now, feeling as if the last few hours had happened too long ago to remember clearly. 

…

_The present…_

Under the moonlight, I walked home from the Hokage’s office. Though I hated being shut in all day stamping scrolls and making important decisions about important things, I loved my late-night walks home. The breeze was gentle on my skin and through my hair. I walked while staring at the stars, since I couldn’t see the pages of Icha Icha. Businesses were closed for the night, but occasionally someone passed me. They would bow and I would smile at them. If it were day, they might stop me to praise me, and though I appreciated it, it also suffocated me. At night, we were just people living in the same village in the same land in the same world. That’s how it was supposed to be.

On this night, I took a long way home. Sometimes I passed through Naruto’s neighborhood, Sakura’s, Shikamaru’s, Gai’s and so on. The intention wasn’t to check up on them, but almost as if it wasn’t up to me, I scanned the alleys and rooftops just in case a sharpened silhouette were to slip into the window of someone I cared about. The concern was pointless, but I was paranoid and overly cautious.

On this night, as I passed Kurenai’s home, I also passed businesses I was less familiar with. This route really was far out of my way.

Feet padded on gravel to my left, and I turned my head. A woman stood underneath the awning of the only brothel in the leaf village. Lady Tsunade had made it legal during her time as hokage, because so many women were the targets of criminals in the night and the ninja weren’t allowed to interfere since their reason for being out in the dark was illegal. I always had, but, others hadn’t. 

“Hey there,” she purred, and I realized abruptly that from where she stood she couldn’t tell I was the hokage. In the moonlight, my hair looked bluer – or maybe whiter – and though I was the only shinobi that wore my mask 24/7, I was not even close to the only shinobi that wore a mask. Around this time, plenty of shinobi would be wandering into the village after missions, a few seeking a distraction from whatever they’d witnessed beyond the village limits. This time of night, the brothel’s business must spike.

Then she said, “I can’t take away the pain, baby. But I can take your mind off it.”

I tilted my head at her, wondering what made her assume I was in pain. I had no injuries. I wasn’t struggling to walk. Though I wore the leaf headband, I doubted that would be enough of a signifier for her to assume I was in pain. Or did she say this to all men? Maybe she believed that the only men that would accept her offer were men in pain. I didn’t know.

I stepped closer, though I wasn’t sure why. As the hokage, the scandal that would ensue if I was seen in her presence let alone taking her home with me was not worth it. And in any case, I’d never given in to the same shortcuts that Jiraiya had. The women I took home had really taken me home. I’d never stooped so low as to pay women. In fact, I rarely stooped as low as taking women at all. I was a shinobi and whether or not shinobi lived by the three prohibitions, I always had followed them as much as I could stand to. I spent money, occasionally, on books. I’d drank, occasionally, with Jiraiya. And I slept with women, occasionally, when – How to put it? When I stopped being a shinobi or Kakashi Hatake or anyone at all. 

Then I realized why I’d stepped closer. To smell her. Whenever I couldn’t sense someone’s chakra, I made a habit of catching their scent. Even if they weren’t a fellow ninja. 

And my eyes rolled back a little. My cheeks flared. My body tensed. Whenever a woman ovulated, her scent changed, and the scent made me crazy. I inhaled it like I could hold it in my lungs all night if only I inhaled enough of it. I thought about dragging my lips down her neck and shoulders and breast. Tasting her skin on my tongue. Breathing in that scent from every surface of her body. It’d be sweetest between her thighs. I shivered. It made my resolve waver. I hadn’t had sex since – 

Before the war. No – Not even then. 

My eyes widened. I hadn’t had sex since I was in the ANBU. 

She stepped forward, taking advantage of my apparent hesitation. Taking my step forward as invitation to come closer. 

When she stepped into the light, and looked up to meet my gaze, her body went rigid. “L – Lord Hokage, I – I’m so sorry – I had no idea you –”

Seeing her look of embarrassment made me hate myself for ever having learned to infuse chakra in my nostrils. 

“It’s, uh, okay. It’s –”

She bowed quickly and went to walk away.

“Uh, miss?” I said, “Do you think you could –”

“Of course, Lord Hokage. I would never tell anyone.”

That wasn’t what I was going to say. I was going to ask her to stay inside for the night. The whole point of opening the brothel was to give them a safe shelter to perform their risky services.

But as soon as she said that, I heaved a sigh of relief. 

“Thank you,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. 

She bowed again, and ducked inside. 

I resumed my walk home with tunnel vision and a lingering scent at the base of my nose. 

…

At home, I went through the routine I always did. I took my sandals off at the door. Then my gloves and threw them on my desk. The armor plates clanked against the wood. After that, I slowly undid the binding around my ankles and calves. My legs throbbed with the sudden excess circulation. I wriggled my toes. Then I pulled off my vest and stretched my back. 

Always, I came home exhausted. And always, I summoned the energy to make a meal of some kind. Tonight I cared so little that I even made instant ramen. What would Naruto think of me now? He’d tell me to eat more veggies in a mocking voice. I smiled despite myself.

After, I laid down on my bed and stared at my ceiling. Normally, I’d turn on the light and read for a while before bed. Since Jiraiya died, I’d even broadened the variety of books I read. I had to. The first two of his books I’d literally memorized. I wanted the third to maintain its ability to surprise me.

But tonight, I didn’t have the energy to read.

Actually, that was just what I was telling myself. 

The truth was I didn’t care enough to. I didn’t care what happened in the book I was reading. I didn’t care if I slept tonight. I didn’t care if I slept and never woke up. I didn’t care if this was the last day of my life. 

Over the years, I’d learned to ignore this feeling for extended lengths of time. I could go months without considering suicide, and then, out of nowhere, I’d think of my dad. Not like I usually thought about my dad, fondly reminiscing about the deceased. But like I thought of my dad before he died: as though he were still alive. As though I could visit him tomorrow somewhere other than the graveyard. Thinking of him as though he were alive felt so natural to me. And then my mind would go through it all again and I’d remember finding my father on the floor of our home with a blade in his gut. 

That was when I’d consider what my father would think if I took the dishonorable way out. I didn’t think he’d be ashamed of me. I thought he’d understand. He’d understand what no one else in the shinobi world could. On nights like this, all I needed in the world was for one person to understand. No one ever had. Not even myself.

I supposed I should wait to kill myself until Naruto was experienced and skilled enough to become a suitable replacement as hokage. 

I fell asleep thinking about my father as though he were alive. 

…

I woke up. That was fine too.

But I woke up even earlier than I normally would. The horizon was pale blue with the impending sunrise. No way that the light had woken me.

I thought I heard a noise, but a noise like what? I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t resemble footsteps or any motion a human could make. It sounded like…branches stirring in the wind. There weren’t any trees outside my window. I was still unsettled. Adrenaline rushed and I became too alert to humor sleep.

I flicked on my light. Then I picked up Icha Icha. 

For the first twenty pages, I was completely engrossed in the main characters’ first sights of each other and the following captivation. I blushed when they flirted and laughed when they joked and smiled when they were happy, though I never did this when people saw me reading it. 

Right until I heard the unmistakable sound of a twig scrape against a wall and I froze. In my periphery, I gazed out my window as my hand reached for my kunai pack. I didn’t always wear it in the hokage’s office, as an enemy would have to go through dozens of other shinobi with kunai of their own before they even reached me. It was uncomfortable to sit on for so long in that office chair anyway. 

“You can show yourself now,” I said to whoever was outside my window. “Don’t make a scene,” I added, because the last thing I wanted was to alert the whole damn village that someone was trying to assassinate the hokage, who was already pretty unimpressed with this spy’s ability to keep himself concealed. I even opened the window for him.

Blue sandals landed on the windowsill. When my eyes sought out his face, he wore an ANBU mask. Right away, he removed it, and I realized why I had caught him so easily. He wasn’t trying to conceal himself and he wasn’t a spy. 

“Tenzo?” I asked, alert for new reasons now. “Did something happen?”

He scratched his head and looked away bashfully. “No, sorry, Lord Sixth.”

“You can at least call me Kakashi when no one else is around,” I said, sighing. “I’m not even wearing shoes. I’m basically not the hokage right now.”

He chuckled, but didn’t look as though he’d changed his mind.

“Anyway, what’re you doing here?”

He stood straight then, and looked me in the eyes. “I’m not supposed to tell you, sir.”

I shook my head in confusion. “What? I’m the hokage. Everyone’s supposed to tell me everything.”

“But I thought you weren’t the hokage right now, sir.”

I deadpanned. Alright, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?

“What aren’t you supposed to tell me?”

He grimaced and exhaled deeply.

“If you don’t tell me I’ll figure it out.”

“It’s the ANBU’s job to guard the hokage at all times.”

My jaw dropped as I processed what that meant. “I thought Lady Tsunade got rid of that law!”

He scratched his temple this time. “She thought she did. But it continued in secret…And we were told not to tell you, because you’d evade us better than she did if you knew. She just hit the shinobi who followed her but you’d disappear.”

“You’re damn right I would,” I spit. “This stops immediately.”

His shoulders slumped. “What’s protection hurt?”

“Have I become so useless I can’t protect myself?” 

He looked away and I could tell he regretted what he’d said. “Of course not. It’s just protocol, sir. I – This is all my fault. No one ever gets this close to you. They’re practically not even there most the time because they know they don’t have to be. Why do you think you haven’t noticed?”

I hesitated to respond. Either he was telling the truth, or my senses were becoming even duller than I thought. I should really set aside some time to train every day. If only I had the time. Despite being a fast reader, I simply couldn’t do things that bored me quickly. Tomorrow, I ought to thank Shikamaru, again, for all he did despite hating it as much as I did. 

I sighed and placed my hand against my forehead. “Alright,” I said. “If you insist –”

“I insist.”

“I know, Tenzo. Let me finish. At least stay in my room. You can’t possibly maintain your mokuton all night.”

He looked torn between obeying me and obeying a code of conduct: this was, I assumed, highly against protocol.

“Tenzo,” I said, “I’m tired. Just do it.”

“Yes sir,” he said.

I crawled back into bed, and he looked around my room. As soon as I could tell he was about to sit on the ground, I patted the bed.

“Sir?!” 

“What? You’ve slept this close to me on missions before, right? Who cares?” I didn’t know why he had to make everything so difficult. Life was difficult enough as is. 

He sat on the bed beside me, and something crinkled.

“Oh,” I said. “My book.”

He jolted. “Oh, damn. I bent it, sir. I’m so –”

“I’ve bent it too. It’s old. Forget it.”

He set it on my nightstand for me and sat upright so still he could be made of stone. Probably, he didn’t want to disturb me, but his presence disturbed me. People rarely entered my room. Though I kept my eyes shut and rolled over, I could sense minutes later when he picked up my book again. I smiled. He’d shown curiosity before, but never actually read the books himself because he didn’t want to be labeled a pervert like I was. 

Eventually, when I knew I truly was beyond sleep, I rolled over and decided to have a conversation with an old friend. I barely ever saw him anymore. Now that he was here, I realized I’d missed him. 

“What do you think?” I asked. 

“Hmmm? Oh,” he blushed and set the book back down. “I was just wondering why you like these books so much.”

I shrugged. “Apparently because I’m a pervert.”

He laughed like he didn’t mean it and shook his head. “You know as well as I do that’s not true.”

“Oh?” I said, “You think?”

“I know,” he said. 

He said it with such conviction. No leftover teasing tone. I wanted to know what made him so sure when no one else was. 

“Then why do I read them?” I asked, quietly.

He swallowed and shifted away from me in the bed. “I don’t know for sure. Sometimes I think I’ll have to read the books myself to finally find out.”

“Why do you care why I read them?” I asked. Why did anyone care? I didn’t know but everyone did. Just like everyone cared about my mask. Everyone wanted to see my face all the damn time. 

“Because there’s a part of you no one knows,” he said.

I jerked my head up. “What?”

He jumped, like he suddenly remembered I was there. “Uh, I mean – You’re just hard to read, sir. And I think you’re hard to read on purpose. Because…there’s something you don’t want people to, uh…” He stared at the book. “Read.”

“Every ninja is hard to read on purpose,” I said. Then I thought of Naruto. “Well, not every ninja.”

He smiled, knowing exactly what I meant. Then his eyes wandered back to my book. His fingers flickered through the pages. He trailed his fingers over the cover.

“I know there must be something these books give you that no one else does,” he said, quietly. “And it’s not the smut. Because…I mean,” he stammered, then blushed. “I doubt that would be, um, a problem for you.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. He had no idea. I wasn’t sure where these assumptions about me came from. Part of the reason why I avoided sleeping around wasn’t just because it was one of the three ninja prohibitions. Sleeping around – connecting with someone in a nonviolent way – wasn’t something I was trained to do the way killing was. It was easier to avoid the awkward fumbling and poor communication. 

I’d certainly never felt anything like the characters in Icha Icha did when they had sex. 

“I think you let people think you’re a pervert,” he said. “Because you’d rather people dismiss you as a pervert than pity you for being lonely.”

My body stiffened under the covers. I glared at him, so thoroughly unsettled I couldn’t speak. I hated him.

No – I hated that he was right.

I hated myself.

Somehow, I managed to sit up. I rested my back against the wall adjacent to my bed. By this point, Tenzo had noticed my discomfort. He stood up and apologized. Told me that we could forget this happened. That he’d never bring it up again. He was halfway out the window before I called him back into my room.

He came back and not because I was hokage and he had to obey orders. He came back because he would always come back when I called for him.

Did he think he was the only one between us that had paid attention? That had tried to figure out how the other’s mind operated? Or how to unravel the seams stitched on his heart? 

Tenzo stood at the window. 

“Why would you tell me that?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, sir. I stepped –”

“Don’t. Leave right now if you’re Yamato. But if you’re Tenzo, stay.”

He stayed. 

“If you’re Tenzo, then I’m your friend. You once tried to take my life. And you’ve also saved my life. There is no such thing as formalities among comrades,” I said, and a memory from so long ago now flickered behind my eyelids. A long back. A sweet scent. I pushed it away. Now wasn’t the time. 

“Now, why would you tell me that? Why wouldn’t you choose to keep it to yourself?” 

I’d kept his secrets to myself. When we were in ANBU together, I saw how he gazed at the naked forms of the men surrounding us in the locker room as we changed for missions. I caught him glancing at me more often than was safe whenever we were in a tight situation. He rarely disagreed with me and never about anything important. He even let me take advantage of him, paying the bill for me once in a while or building me a bench when I could just as easily recline in a tree. 

That alone wouldn’t be enough.

I sensed how he felt. Sometimes, I even thought I could smell it.

But I’d never tell him this. I would never allow him to feel humiliated in my presence. 

“I wanted you to know I knew,” he said.

“Why?”

He blushed and glanced at his feet. “Because I wanted you to know that I understand. That I was the one to –”

“Read what no one else read?”

He nodded. “And that it didn’t matter to me. I don’t look at you differently. I – feel the same.”

“You’re lonely?” I asked

“As any shinobi,” he said.

I shook my head. He was pretending again. True as it was that many shinobi were lonely, no one actually testified that all shinobi were. Not when so many had managed to find lifelong partners. When so many had had families of their own. 

Tenzo and I were the only two shinobi left in the village as old as we were that didn’t have somebody. At least somebody once in a while.

And for him, it was because of his preference. A preference that would ostracize him in the shinobi world, or perhaps the whole world. 

I had no excuse.

To be honest, I didn’t know what was worse. To be alone because you had no choice or to be alone and have no excuse. I was suddenly thinking of my father again. He’d lost my mother so soon after I was born. He never had anyone else that I knew of. Sometimes I reassured myself that he’d probably found somebody else, and decided not to introduce me. Sometimes I reassured myself that even in death he was devoted to my mother.

I sighed. “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s to ignore it the next time I think I’m being spied on.”

“But – ! Lord Sixth that could –”

“Get me killed?” I asked, then huffed out a laugh. Wouldn’t that be nice.

“Well, yes!” 

“Give it a rest, Tenzo.”

He was quiet for a long moment. So long I thought I might fall asleep after all. But he sunk into the bed beside me and I cracked open an eye again. He looked nervous, and torn again. What was he internally debating? I couldn’t tell. But it better not be another damn apology.

“You’re right,” he whispered. “I’m lonely. But I have to be, you don’t. You shouldn’t be.”

Only then did I realize he hadn’t noticed my eye crack open. He thought I was asleep. He leaned so close over me. I could feel his breath on my skin. Spell his woodsy scent. It smelled like the Leaf Village. It smelled like summer. It smelled like home. I inhaled deeply the way I had inhaled the woman’s scent in the village just hours before. I could feel the warmth of his body so close to me. And the strength of his weight sinking into the bed. It was so familiar. If another body sunk into the sheets beside me, I would have noticed. I would have been alarmed. But his, I thought I would know it was him even if I hadn’t opened my eyes. 

But I did open them, and his gaze met mine. For once he didn’t where the expression of someone in the ANBU, or Captain Yamato, or even a junior admiring his senior. He was just Tenzo, truly, as if he’d never been anyone else. 

He gasped quietly, and then looked away from me. He pulled away, and I recognized the restraint in his limbs. The tightness in his eyes. The longing in his voice just a moment before. It made me hurt for my friend, who’d yearned for me as long as I could remember, and had always kept a respectable arms’ length away from me. 

He shouldn’t have to be lonely either. 

He shouldn’t have to hurt the way I did. 

There wasn’t anything I could do about my hurt. But I could do something about his.

I was doing something I’d never done before. I was sliding my hand around the nape of his neck and pulling him into me. Our foreheads pressed together and he stared at me wide-eyed. I lifted my hand up to remove his head protector, and he took it off for me. I threaded my fingers through his hair. I missed the days when we were young.

“You should grow out your hair again,” I said.

He swallowed. “You like long hair?”

I nodded. I had a weakness for long hair. Even when we were young, I remember catching glances of him from behind and feeling the urge to comb my fingers through the hair that reached the midpoint of his back. Sometimes it tangled on missions, and when we got back to the lockers he’d have me untangle anything he couldn’t reach. His scent was thick in his hair. I believed then that it lured me in because it made him look like a girl. But I wasn’t sure that was true now. I didn’t know if I cared whether or not it was. 

“On men?” he choked.

I tilted my head. “Never thought about it before.”

He shook his head in disbelief.

“I like long hair on you,” I said, to make things easier. 

“Kakashi,” he whispered. “What are you –”

I was about to tell him not to think about it – because I wasn’t – but he caught himself and skipped right to the question every other person I’d shared a bed with had asked. Actually, every other person I’d ever met had asked.

“Can I,” he started, placing the pads of his fingers against my mask, “see your face?”

I hesitated. My instincts urged me to pull away, but I reminded myself what I was doing. If I was doing this with him, it meant I had to do all that I’d done with others, with him too. The women I slept with, the few there were, all had had the privilege of seeing my face.

Mainly because, I loved kissing. More than just about anything else in the world. I wouldn’t deny myself what only came my way once every few years. Or in this case, many more years than that. 

I nodded at him and he was so shocked for a moment he didn’t know what to do. But then his fingers curled underneath my mask. 

As soon as he revealed the one below it he rolled his eyes.

I grinned. “This one has a slit in it so I can eat without taking my mask off.”

“So that’s how you do it,” he said, looking entirely unamused.

“Tenzo,” I said. “You can take this one off too.”

Again, he looked astonished, but proceeded to curl his fingers underneath the other one. He took his time. Several seconds passed before he revealed the Leaf Village’s best kept secret.

He exhaled like he was out of breath. His fingertips trailed down my cheek bones, along my jaw, and over my lips. One settled on the mole just below my lip and to the left. I never understood people’s fascination with it but every woman I’d been with looked just as enamored, like they’d found buried treasure. 

“So?” I asked. “Is it everything you dreamed?”

I was being entirely sarcastic, but he caught me off guard when he said, “More than that.”

Then I blushed. Apparently, I was handsome. Or so I was told. But all I saw when I looked in the mirror without my mask on was my father. 

But when I looked in the mirror with my mask –

Another memory, flickering so distantly behind my eyelids I almost didn’t spot it. It flew off like a moth in the night as I tried to cling to it. 

Something about how I looked in the mirror when I wore a mask.

Something about how I looked with my mask on.

A low chuckle coming from a few feet above me. A pat on the head by an enormous, firm but gentle hand. Looking up. A wide grin on my father’s face. 

“You’re going to look just like your mother did in her mask,” a familiar man said. “Yours is just like hers.”

A shudder ran through me and my eyes widened. 

Tenzo didn’t notice. He was still gazing at the angles of my cheekbones and jaw.

“Are you ever going to tell me why –” 

“Because it makes me look like my mother,” I said. 

His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “It does?”

“My mother wore a mask, Tenzo,” I blurted. 

He looked like that had never occurred to him. But he didn’t understand the gravity of what I had just confessed. It had never occurred to _me_. It was so long ago now that my father introduced me to my first mask. And I remembered now, it was so soon after my mother’s death. It had taken me all my life to remember this. 

This was why I couldn’t remember what my mother looked like. When I thought of her, I saw myself, and never understood why.

This was _why_. 

And then I was kissing him, as desperately as I dreamed about kissing anyone one day. I pulled him into me by his vest and just as soon had yanked it off of him. He barely knew what was happening, only knew enough to kiss me back when he had the breath. 

We undressed as expertly as all ninja were taught. My skin lapped at his, basked against it. He was so warm, so smooth. His lips felt like velvet against my own. I bit into his bottom lip, sucked on it, tasted that scent of leaves rustling in the wind and wood burning in a fire. His arms were wrapped tightly around my shoulders and I clenched him to my chest by his waist just as tightly. We breathed together, him inhaling as I exhaled, him exhaling as I inhaled.

“Kakashi,” he gasped. “Are you sure?”

I kissed my way down his throat, feeling his pulse flicker fast and hard against my tongue. He groaned when I sucked and I shivered because I liked the sound. “I’m sure.”

He trembled as my lips dragged further down his chest. We were both hard, pressed against each other, and the friction was so achingly sweet. It had been so long. Too long. My body was in pain. 

I reached for him, wrapped my hand around him. The feeling was both foreign and familiar. He felt heavy in my hand, the same way I had always felt in my own hand. But I didn’t mind. It didn’t matter that he was a man anymore. It mattered that his body wanted mine. And I knew how to please him. I started stroking and he moaned into my mouth. I kissed, hungry for more. 

“Ka – kashi,” he moaned, “I want to –”

And he pulled away from me. I mourned the loss of his lips but couldn’t possibly protest as he sank to the lower half of the bed and situated himself between my legs. I clenched the sheets, fully aware of what was about to happen and yet it was unbelievable to me. It had been so long, I couldn’t even remember what it felt –

Like _heaven_. My body went slack as he went down on me and I clasped a hand over my mouth to douse my whimper. My other hand clenched even tighter in the sheets, ripping them. I panted at the feeling of his lips spread on me. The heat of his breath and slickness of his tongue against me. My body tensed and shook. 

“Tenzo,” I gasped. “I – Not yet. You first.” I’d always pleased my partners first. I’d always wanted to please them first. Even now, paralyzed from pleasure, I was thinking about making him feel this way.

And I didn’t want it to be over so soon.

In response, he pulled off, but not to speak. Instead he laid down on the bed the opposite way I did. This was his response. He wouldn’t stop making me feel good. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t please him at the same time.

I wondered: was this how two men made love? 

I’d never thought to ask. 

It took me a moment to summon the courage. But it seemed easy enough. And I still got to use my mouth and lips. Almost as good as kissing, I figured. So I wrapped my lips around him like he had me and my mouth watered from the taste. He was so warm and his scent was so strong, intoxicating. I inhaled deeply as I eased him further into my mouth.

He groaned from the sensation and even that felt good. I shivered again. I wanted – _needed_ to make him feel as good. I needed to give him what he’d waited all these years for. 

We pulled each other closer, curling into each other like clasped hands. Even though he’d gotten a head start, he was the one clawing at my back and clinging to my ass, damn near thrusting into my mouth. I could tell he was close. He’d gotten wetter, and the taste was even better than his scent.

Then he pulled off. I ached instantly from the loss, but it was worth it.

It was worth it when he moaned, “ _Kashi_.”

I didn’t know why but hearing my name shortened like that drove me crazy. He couldn’t even articulate my full name anymore.

I went down further than I had before, determined more than ever and suddenly it happened. His back arched and his hips bucked and I could taste him at the back of my throat.

Then I clung to him. My hands roamed over his body the way his had roamed over mine. I lingered on his back and legs and ass the way I would on a woman but loved the feeling just as much in a different way. 

He never stopped. Never slowed. He built me up until I couldn’t bare it. 

I’d never felt like this before.

All the pressure that had built up released. I felt such relief from the ecstasy that I threw my head back, closed my eyes, and grinned. 

When I finally came down, and opened my eyes, he was lying down next to me, hitched up on one elbow. He placed his palm against my cheek.

“Are you still – Can we still –” he struggled to ask. 

I pulled his hand into mine. “Yes.”

He rested his head against the pillow for all but a second before I was pulling him into my chest. Admittedly, it was hard for me. I never kept up the touching after I was finished. But he’d asked, and I couldn’t deny him. He placed his ear against my chest and wrapped an arm around my waist. I rested my arm against his back, setting my hand on his shoulder. 

“I didn’t know you preferred men,” he whispered.

“I don’t,” I said.

“But you –”

“I prefer you,” I said. 

“But I’m not the first to see your face,” he whispered. 

I took in all the unsaid words that followed. I was his first. Though he hadn’t felt inexperienced to me, he was. He probably felt so capable to me because it had been so long, and I was so sensitive. 

It was also unsaid that others had seen my face. Others I’d slept with. 

“Not nearly as many as you think,” I said, trying to reassure him. 

He quieted at that. The whole village was quiet for a long moment. I knew that very soon I’d have to get up and get dressed. I’d have to report to work. His shift would end, and whoever was scheduled to stalk the hokage next would replace him, but at too far a distance to detect. I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think.

My chest hadn’t felt this light in my life. I could breathe fully and deeply the Leaf Village air into my lungs. 

I stroked Tenzo’s shoulder with my thumb. His almond-shaped eyes glanced back up at me, unable to turn away from my exposed face for very long. Usually, I’d have already pulled my mask back on.

I glanced down at him, remembering what had stirred my passion. 

I tilted his chin up with my free hand so that he would look me in the eyes. 

“You are the first person I told.”

His eyes brightened. “About why you where your mask.”

I nodded. “I didn’t even know until you made me remember.”

His features softened and for a moment I could tell that all his emotions were building up inside of him. First he beamed, and then his face crumpled. He shielded it with one of his hands. I kissed the top of his head and inhaled the scent of his hair.

“It’s because you’re special enough to keep my confessions.”

He turned to face me and I looked down at him. We knew everything else about one another that was unsaid. He kissed me and I kissed back.

I would always kiss back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you're curious, my tumblr URL is oryx-and-thickney@tumblr.com.


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